History

Vending Machines You Didn’t Know You Needed

~ beetleypete ~ 31 Comments

Milk vending machine in London, England, circa 1931.

A man has his boots cleaned by an automatic penny-in-the-slot boot-polishing machine, circa 1907.

A vending machine sells fruit in London, England, circa 1929.

A woman operating the first vending machine in Britain to sell potatoes at a greengrocer’s shop at Chelsea, London, on Oct. 22, 1962. The machine provided a round-the-clock service.

Three women enjoy soup from a Campbell’s Soup vending machine in their office, 1950s. One woman opens a can of soup with a floor-mounted can opener.

At the Second Automatic Vending Exhibition in London, a woman helps herself to a vending machine-mixed whisky and soda on Feb. 15, 1960.

A vending machine selling clocks in Berlin, Germany, circa 1963.

A woman buys a carton of milk from a vending machine, U.K. May 1960.
(I used these. They were around until the late 1970s.)

Coal machine distributor in England.

Two women try out the first nylon tights vending machine in Paris, circa 1965.

Vending machine selling hot sausages presented at the industries fair in Berlin, Germany, circa 1954.

A woman getting a pint of draught bitter from a vending machine, circa 1960s.

An English man demonstrates an egg vending machine at the gate of his farm on Sep. 9, 1963.

London In Colour 1970-1971: The Photos Of David Wisdom

~ beetleypete ~ 28 Comments

David Wisdom took these pictures in 1970 and 1971 while he was sharing a luxury flat in Holly Hill, Hampstead with a group of friends from Vancouver. He was born in post-war England to a couple of touring actors of the repertory stage. In 1952 he moved to Vancouver with his parents, and has spent most of his life there.

All photos © David Wisdom

Evangelical street preachers in Trafalgar Square.

Primrose Gardens. An up-market area in North London.

A fashionable woman attracting attention on Kings Road, Chelsea.

Speaker’s Corner, Hyde Park. Traditionally a place where people would promote their beliefs in public.

A seasonal funfair in North London.

Street busker with his trained parrot. The bird would hold the cup for any donation money.

Elderly shoppers at a busy street market.

The last shop trading in Stepney Green.

East London In The 1970s: The Photos of Homer Sykes

~ beetleypete ~ 39 Comments

From his time as a student living in West London until the present day, Homer Sykes has travelled across the city to take photos in the run down working-class districts of Whitechapel and Spitalfields. These photos were taken during the 1970s.

Photographs copyright © Homer Sykes

The influx of immigrants to the area caused a backlash from neo-Nazi groups. This man is selling a National Front newspaper with a racist headline.

Car trouble outside the tenements.

Two elderly residents of the area.

A local white girl with her Asian boyfriend. It was still quite rare at the time for the communities to mix.

Many buildings were being demolished, or had not been rebuilt after war damage.

Neighbours of different races, a common sight in the area.

The signs show the traditional trade of the area, clothing manufacture.

Immigrants took over many of the shops, operating late opening hours every day.

This lady is selling off her possessions to make money.

England In Colour: 1928-1932

~ beetleypete ~ 46 Comments

These photos were taken by Clifton R. Adams, who was sent to England by National Geographic magazine to photograph life in the country.
(Most can be slightly enlarged by clicking on them.)

Mr Adams, who died in 1934 aged just 44, had instructions to record its farms, towns and cities, and its residents at work and play. He took the images in colour using Autochrome Lumière, which was the most advanced colour photographic process of the day. The plates were covered in microscopic potato starch grains coloured red, green and blue-violet, with about four million per square inch. Light passed through the colour filters when an image was taken, with the plate then processed to produce a positive transparency.

Children on a beach. Isle of Wight, 1928.

A postman in Oxford, 1928.

A fashionable lady posting a letter. Oxford, 1928.

Girl standing outside a cottage in Clovelly, Devon. 1928.

Proud of their sandcastle. Bournemouth, 1932.

Boy posting a letter. Sussex, 1928.

More cottages in Clovelly, 1928.

Boy Scouts on parade in Surrey. Exact date unknown.

A girl outside the Cat and Fiddle Inn, Exeter. 1931.

Passengers ride on ‘Billy’, a miniature locomotive running at the Kent seaside resort of Margate, 1931.

A tradtional thatched-roof cottage in Hampshire. 1931.

A girl harvesting barley. Lincolnshire, 1929.

Yeoman Warders parade at The Tower of London. Exact date unknown.

Kew Gardens, London. 1929.

On the white cliffs in Sussex, 1931.

Everyday Life in England During the 1950s-60s: The Photos Of John Gay

~ beetleypete ~ 53 Comments

John Gay, born Hans Göhler (1909-1999), came to England in 1935. He was one of the generation of German emigres who made a contribution to British culture and academia. After a period of war service, he established himself as a leading photographer in the late 1940s and 1950s, illustrating magazines such as The Strand and Country Fair, publishing several photographic books and working with authors such as John Betjeman. His preferred themes included light and shade, animals and children, informal shots of ordinary people at work and leisure, landscapes and rural subjects, modern architecture, and London.

Morris Dancers performing in a rural town. (Probably for St. George’s Day)

Traditional fencing methods in the countryside.

A family skating on a frozen pond.

The Snowman resting on a bench.

This man is homeless, and living rough in the countryside during Winter.

A Buckinghamshire town in Winter.

A cake shop in Padstow, Cornwall. The girl is trying to decide which cake she wants.

A West Indian immigrant in a London Street Market. You can see from the face of the man that she attracted attention at that time.

Feeding the geese in a countryside village.

Urban living in North London.

A Poodle chauffeur.

Old lady walking through a rural town.

Christmas decorations in a Central London shopping street.

A Christmas street market in London.

Traffic at a standstill in North London.

Enjoying the rides at a Summer Fair in North London.

What Kids Did Before The Internet

~ beetleypete ~ 70 Comments

Being outside was a huge part of growing up. These kids, and their parents, knew how important that was. Wherever you lived, I am sure you will identify with this, as long as you are over forty!

Leap Frog.

Reading Comics.

Swinging.

Hoses in hot weather.

Riding bicycles.

Walking to and from school with a friend.

Hide and Seek.

Playing Jacks. (Or marbles)

Climbing unsupervised at the park or playground.

Pogo Sticks in the street.

‘Oranges and Lemons’.

Hopscotch in the road or school playground.

H

War Damage And Rebuilding: Prefabs In London

~ beetleypete ~ 40 Comments

Prefabricated homes were seen as the quick answer to the housing shortage caused by German bombing in WW2. Built on top of pre-plumbed ­concrete slabs, these homes could be erected in a day by teams of German and Italian prisoners-of-war who were in no hurry to return home, come the peace. Londoners soon gave them the shortened name, Prefabs.

For more than 150,000 homeless, bombed-out families across Britain, these two-bedroom prefabs were meant to be a merely temporary solution at the end of the war. But they were a godsend, too — detached houses with the then astonishing luxury of a garden, a bathroom, and a separate indoor toilet. They soon became the envy of those still living in pre-war accommodation nearby, and were one of the most desirable options for social housing.

As a child in the 1950s, I remember them near where we lived, and how much everyone was jealous of being able to live in one.

They were designed to last only ten years, just long enough to allow post-war Britain to build all those wonderful new council blocks for homecoming heroes like Hector Murdoch and his family.

As the Sixties unfolded, multi-storey concrete utopias were popping up all over Britain’s ­metropolitan skylines and most of the prefabs came down. But as the years went on, the script went badly wrong. Many people found that they hated living in high-rise blocks, no matter how much the architects and the councils told them how lucky they were. In the end, the tower blocks started coming down again. Yet, the remaining prefabs — and their grateful residents — stayed put.

Even the local church was prefabricated.

Sadly, most have since been demolished by different authorities around Britain. In total, 156,623 prefab bungalows were built between 1945 and 1949. According to the Pre-fab Museum, around 8,000 are left in the UK with around 30 listed for presevation. They are still lived in today.

Random Photos To Bring A Smile

~ beetleypete ~ 50 Comments

This selection of feel-good photos (mostly staged for the camera) made me smile. I hope they work for you too.

A young man with his pet Owls.

Taking your dog to the hairdresser’s.

A skateboarding nun.

The fisherman’s cat lives in his beard.

This old lady is using a puppet of an old lady to feed squirrels in the park.

Police Dog Response Unit.

Using WW2 gas hoods to combat smog in Philadelphia. (1953)

Obviously a slow day at their shop.

An Edwardian-era postman takes his dog on the round to guard the mail.

A Roaring Twenties lady with her pet piglet.

This pram seen in London is designed to resemble a horse and carriage.

No dog biscuits for sale, WW2. During the war, pet food and treats became scarce because of food rationing.

Taking her duck for a walk.

Wearing masks against infectious diseases is nothing new.

A young girl and her pet sheep walking along an English High Street.

A small girl with her tiny cat.

Taking her snake for a walk.

Postcards Of The 1960s: The Photos Of John Hinde

~ beetleypete ~ 48 Comments

The postcards were produced in the 1960s by photographer John Hinde, a key figure in the development of the colour photograph as a postcard. Each photograph is innovative in its use of colour and stage-management. Shot with large format cameras, the production of these photographs was an extraordinary undertaking. Sometimes photographs could take a day and a half to get right. He used vibrant, highly saturated colours to depict a proverbially beautiful image produced to the highest standards.

It wasn’t just postcards of London that he produced. John Hinde was born in Somerset in 1916 and had always been interested in photography. During the 1940s he took photographs for many series of books, including ‘Britain in Pictures’ and ‘Garden in Colour’ and famously he photographed London during the blitz, which were used to illustrate ‘Citizens in war – and after’ published in 1945. After a short stint in Chipperfield’s Circus, and failing to make a success on his own, he started John Hinde Ltd in Ireland in 1956.

During the following 16 years, he and his studio of photographers travelled Great Britain, Ireland, and many European and African countries taking photographs to produce as postcards. When the company was sold in 1972, it was the world’s most successful postcard company with annual sales of over 50 million postcards.

All images are from John Hinde/John Hinde Collection/John Hinde Ltd)

The Bathing Pool at Ramsgate. A popular seaside holiday town in Kent.

Bottons Funfair, Great Yarmouth. A holiday town on the east coast, not far from Beetley.

Dublin Airport, Ireland. (Yes, people bought postcards of airports. Air travel was something exciting then.)

Longleat Safari Park, Wiltshire. Created in the grounds of an ancestral stately home, this became a very popular attraction that still exists today.

Cars racing on a beach in Jersey. The Channel Islands have long been a popular tourist destination for British people.

Achill Island, County Mayo, Ireland.

A caravan park in Pentewan Sands, Cornwall. I spent all my childhood holidays in Cornwall, and the county is still popular with holidaymakers today.

The Royal Festival Hall, South bank, London.

The Post Office Tower, London. This opened in 1965, and once had a revolving restaurant at the top. I took my first wife there for a birthday meal in the 1970s.

The Houses of Parliament at night, London.

A policeman on traffic duty.

Battersea Park Funfair, South London. (Now closed.)

The open-air paddling pool at Battersea park.